SMC partners with Dell, HP to enhance secure IT infrastructure

The Space and Missile Systems Center is partnering with leaders in the information technology industry to expedite the creation of prototypes of supply chain risk management infrastructure platforms.

The SMC Range and Network Directorate, Cyber Security Division entered into two cooperative research and development agreements to gain access to and evaluate supply chain risk management (SCRM) platform infrastructures that use commercial and government off-the-shelf and open source products. One agreement is with Dell EMC and the other with Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

SMC is focused on three Air Force initiatives: Enterprise Ground Services - a program that includes development of a common ground system for military satellites; Enterprise Battle Management Command and Control System - an effort to provide a secure hardware and network infrastructure, common data standards and applications to enable space operational command and control at multiple locations; and Enterprise System Engineering, which establishes policies and procedures, defines interfaces and allocates requirements across multiple SMC systems.

“Once validated and approved, these platforms will serve as resilient hardware infrastructure that can be modified and evolved with commercial innovations,” said John Zacharias, the SMC Range and Network Division’s SCRM program manager. “It’s a prototyping effort for the infrastructure piece of the Enterprise Ground Services and the Enterprise Battle Management Command and Control System.”

Under the agreements, each company will provide onsite platforms and engineers and will be fully involved in auditing the SCRM processes provided to the task force. As a result, Dell EMC and HPE will be thoroughly vetted and approved as data center hardware providers, which will save valuable acquisition time in the future.

A cooperative research and development agreement, also known as a CRADA, is one type of technology transfer agreement that provides quick access to extensive government-funded research and development resources that can be leveraged to create powerful results while also providing intellectual property protection for both parties. These types of agreements are facilitated by the Air Force Technology Transfer Program and its affiliated Office of Research and Technology Applications (ORTA). An ORTA is embedded at many Air Force research locations.